Centre Pompidou - Europe’s largest collection of modern and contemporary art

Dedicated to all forms of visual culture the Centre Pompidou is where fine art rubs shoulders with design, architecture, photography and ever-changing new media. With over 70,000 works in its collections the exhibitions rotate and themes change in order to maximise the possibilities. Every year, around twenty monographic or thematic exhibitions are organised by the museum, which also hosts a wide variety of events including, music, dance, theatre, arts performances and films exploring the interaction between these diverse isciplines and the visual arts. There are also regular conference cycles, encounters and debates with a focus on the visual arts and their multi-disciplinary extensions, all open to the general public.

Art meets family

The Centre Pompidou has specifically-designed areas for children, teenagers and families to get the most out of the exhibitions and events. The Galerie des enfants, the Atelier des enfants and Studio 13/16 (the first space dedicated to teenagers in a major cultural institution), offer workshops and programmes that promote awareness and facilitate artistic experiences for children and young people of all ages.

Art for all

In order to open up the process of contemporary creation to all visitors, the museum offers guided tours of its collections and exhibitions as well as conferences and introductory sessions which are fully accessible.

The Centre Pompidou is also home to: a public reference library (the Bpi) which is free and open to all; a documentary research and information centre (the Kandinsky Library) intended for modern and contemporary art history researchers; an acoustic/music research and coordination institute (Ircam) which annually offers a range of concerts including around twenty new works, together with an “Academy Festival” in June.

Designed by architects Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, the Centre Pompidou opened to the public in the heart of Paris, in February 1977. Since its construction, the revolutionary building with its colourful, inside-out structure has become an icon of 20th century architecture, and remains a source of inspiration for a whole generation of architects almost 20 years on.